i've been thinking about kampiringisa a lot these past few days....it creeps into my thoughts when i least expect it...it chases away my happy thoughts and fills my mind with dark, depressing images of children living as no child should be forced to live. andrew says we will not go back, that evil resides there.....i don't know. i think he can't bear the heartache and maybe, just maybe, it is an embarassment to him that this place exists in his beautiful country and no one does anything about it.
kampiringisa is officially a remand home, a detention center...at least that is what the sign indicates and that is what the staff says. but, when you ask what happens when the children of naguru are found guilty of a serious crime, you are told "they come here to kampiringisa"....sounds like a prison to me. when you ask what the age range is of the children who are residents here, you are told "12-18". this week we talked to children who had been in residence there at age 6. sounds more and more like a children's prison.
words cannot adequately describe the facility. we were told we could not publish photos as the government of uganda did not want to be depicted with any negativity. there is a sign on the first building as you enter the grounds that indicates the facility was remodeled recently. the facility was built in the early 1950"s. apparently the president's wife had the front of the first building painted, the placque installed, posed for a photo and everyone who saw it thought "oh good, kampiringisa had been remodeled." wrong...don't belive it people....it is the saddest place i have ever been....you carry the weight of thousands of children who have lived there when you enter....and worse than that, there is little hope that things there will change. Lord have mercy.
200 children live in kampiringsa, mostly boys.....ages 6 to probably 20. the longest "sentence' is 3 years, even if for murder. the children eat 3 times a day.... corn porridge (no sugar) for breakfast, posho (corn meal and water) and beans for lunch and dinner...no fruit, veggies, dairy at all. the children have to cook their own meals over an open fire outdoors because the cook is too old to cook. there isn't any running water. there are cells for solitary confinement. there are no extra clothes, children have only the clothes they were wearing upon arrival. the mattresses are disintergrating and smelly and there are not 200 of them. there are few blankets. the mosquito nets have holes in them. the girls do not have underwear or sanitary pads, no one has toothbrushes or soap. this is kampiringisa. these are not hardened criminals, some are 6 years old, their only crimes being their parents didn't want them or they were begging on the streets for food and the police found them, beat them, and took them to kampiringisa. children run away...back to the streets, back to crime if necessary...stealing for food because society and their parents have forgotten them or don't care about them or refuse to realize these kids are uganda's greatest asset.
this week we heard that medical "treatments" were being done on these kids.....crazy medical "treatments", maybe you might term them experiments or something even more dire. there must be a burial place on the property, but it it not on 'the tour'. since we have not documented this, we cannot be certain it is true.....however, there are too many similar stories by children who have been there to believe there isn't some truth. Lord have mercy.
what do we do? good question....i can't put this one to rest. we haven't the funds, nor the manpower to make a change in this place. we know if we bring blankets and soap and food, it will be sold before it ever reaches the children. we can't go to the press because "the ones in control" are too powerful and we would be in danger, destroying all the good we can do for others. we can and do pray.....and sometimes the tears swell up in our eyes, because for the first time, we am completely overwhelmed with a sense of failure and helplessness. Lord have mercy on the children who live or have ever lived or who died in kampiringisa.
kathy
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kampiringisa is officially a remand home, a detention center...at least that is what the sign indicates and that is what the staff says. but, when you ask what happens when the children of naguru are found guilty of a serious crime, you are told "they come here to kampiringisa"....sounds like a prison to me. when you ask what the age range is of the children who are residents here, you are told "12-18". this week we talked to children who had been in residence there at age 6. sounds more and more like a children's prison.
words cannot adequately describe the facility. we were told we could not publish photos as the government of uganda did not want to be depicted with any negativity. there is a sign on the first building as you enter the grounds that indicates the facility was remodeled recently. the facility was built in the early 1950"s. apparently the president's wife had the front of the first building painted, the placque installed, posed for a photo and everyone who saw it thought "oh good, kampiringisa had been remodeled." wrong...don't belive it people....it is the saddest place i have ever been....you carry the weight of thousands of children who have lived there when you enter....and worse than that, there is little hope that things there will change. Lord have mercy.
200 children live in kampiringsa, mostly boys.....ages 6 to probably 20. the longest "sentence' is 3 years, even if for murder. the children eat 3 times a day.... corn porridge (no sugar) for breakfast, posho (corn meal and water) and beans for lunch and dinner...no fruit, veggies, dairy at all. the children have to cook their own meals over an open fire outdoors because the cook is too old to cook. there isn't any running water. there are cells for solitary confinement. there are no extra clothes, children have only the clothes they were wearing upon arrival. the mattresses are disintergrating and smelly and there are not 200 of them. there are few blankets. the mosquito nets have holes in them. the girls do not have underwear or sanitary pads, no one has toothbrushes or soap. this is kampiringisa. these are not hardened criminals, some are 6 years old, their only crimes being their parents didn't want them or they were begging on the streets for food and the police found them, beat them, and took them to kampiringisa. children run away...back to the streets, back to crime if necessary...stealing for food because society and their parents have forgotten them or don't care about them or refuse to realize these kids are uganda's greatest asset.
this week we heard that medical "treatments" were being done on these kids.....crazy medical "treatments", maybe you might term them experiments or something even more dire. there must be a burial place on the property, but it it not on 'the tour'. since we have not documented this, we cannot be certain it is true.....however, there are too many similar stories by children who have been there to believe there isn't some truth. Lord have mercy.
what do we do? good question....i can't put this one to rest. we haven't the funds, nor the manpower to make a change in this place. we know if we bring blankets and soap and food, it will be sold before it ever reaches the children. we can't go to the press because "the ones in control" are too powerful and we would be in danger, destroying all the good we can do for others. we can and do pray.....and sometimes the tears swell up in our eyes, because for the first time, we am completely overwhelmed with a sense of failure and helplessness. Lord have mercy on the children who live or have ever lived or who died in kampiringisa.
kathy
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